A solid challenge from ALBERICH today. I was coming along fine until the last 5 clues which took me thrice as long as the rest of the puzzle. Mainly got stuck in the SE corner.
FF:9 DD:9
| Across | ||
| 1 | PRESUMPTUOUS | Fresh start for pauper about to get rich (12) |
| P (Pauper, starting letter) RE (about) SUMPTUOUS (rich) | ||
| 10 | ABSTAIN | A black mark for forbear (7) |
| A B (black) STAIN (mark) – an unusally non-cryptic clue in an otherwise rich crossword | ||
| 11 | INFERNO | Fire raging with no end of destruction? (7) |
| &lit; FIRE NO N* (end of destructioN) | ||
| 12 | EXCEL | Picked up extra large top (5) |
| sounds like (picked up) XL (extra large) | ||
| 13 | PETER OUT | Bad temper preceding English defeat’s come to nothing (5,3) |
| PET (bad temper) E (english) ROUT (defeat) | ||
| 15 | BLACKGUARD | British want to defend villain (10) |
| B (british) LACK (want) GUARD (defend) | ||
| 16 | CALM | River surrounding Lake Placid (4) |
| CAM (river) around L (lake) | ||
| 18 | CITE | Cut off most of unsolicited call (4) |
| hidden in “..unsoliCITEd..” | ||
| 20 | BLUE PENCIL | Pornographic novel, extremely epic, upset censor (4-6) |
| BLUE (pornographic) [ NL (NoveL, extremely) EPIC ]* | ||
| 22 | SHAMROCK | Plant marrow periodically in hut (8) |
| MaRrOw (periodically) in SHACK (hut) | ||
| 24 | REACT | Before end of test, most arrive at answer (5) |
| REACh (arrive, mostly) T (end of tesT) | ||
| 26 | AGEISTS | In a sense, European Society produces bigots (7) |
| [A GIST (sense?) containing E (european) ] S (society) | ||
| 27 | IMPASTO | This writer’s done with old painting technique (7) |
| I’M (this writer’s) PAST (done) O (old) | ||
| 28 | PERADVENTURE | Prince risks going in both directions, perhaps (12) |
| P (prince) [ ERAD (risk = DARE, reverse of) VENTURE (risk) – together, risks ] | ||
| Down | ||
| 2 | ROSACEA | Bill comes in awfully sore, having a skin disease (7) |
| [ AC (bill) in SORE*] A | ||
| 3 | STARLIKE | One’s beset by crazy stalker resembling dwarf? (8) |
| I (one) in STALKER* | ||
| 4 | MONK | Capuchin, say, or only two thirds of capuchin? (4) |
| MONKey (capuchin, 2/3rds of) | ||
| 5 | TOILETRIES | Fabric samples to make items for dressing (10) |
| TOILE (fabric) TRIES (samples) | ||
| 6 | OFFIE | Workplace doesn’t have cold store for booze (5) |
| OFFIcE (workplace, without C – cold) | ||
| 7 | SARCOMA | Treat corm as a fleshy growth (7) |
| CORM AS A* | ||
| 8 | TAKE A BACK SEAT | Don’t lead Kate astray with fancy cakes in a club (4,1,4,4) |
| KATE* [ CAKES* in A BAT (club) ] | ||
| 9 | CONTEMPLATION | Master involved in criminal plot – not a nice thought (13) |
| M (master) in [PLOT NOT A NICE]* | ||
| 14 | PUBLICISED | Bar is beset by vermin, daughter announced (10) |
| PUB (bar) [ IS in LICE (vermin) ] D (daughter) | ||
| 17 | DECREPIT | Fiat lacks finish? Mine is falling to bits! (8) |
| DECREe (fiat, without last letter) PIT (mine) | ||
| 19 | TRADE UP | Get something better as clue for “paws”? (5,2) |
| crptic def; PAWS could be clued as reverse of SWAP -> TRADE UP | ||
| 21 | COARSER | Blades in mincer half missing – that’s relatively common (7) |
| OARS (blades) in CER (half of minCER) | ||
| 23 | RISER | Gentleman upset leading lady for part of flight (5) |
| RIS (gentleman = SIR, reversed) ER (leading lady) | ||
| 25 | VILE | Listened to German composer – horrible! (4) |
| sounds like WEILL (kurt, german composer) | ||
*anagram
Enjoyed the challenge. Had to look up a list of German composers in order to get 25d. Had toyed initially with “dire”.
Held up a little by 12a, EXCEL. I thought of XL for extra large then translated this to FORTY and entered that, thinking of darts, even though this would normally be said to be double tops not just top. It is at the top of the board so I thought it worked. Ho hum.
Thanks to Alberich and Turbolegs.
Enjoyable. All the long clues had short definitions, on of my favourite devices.
Held up by having BLACKBEARD for ‘villain’ (Chambers confirms ‘beard’ for ‘defend’, grr) but liked the image of the rusty Fiat in 17.
Thanks to both.
I thought this was nothing less than wonderful. Exactly what a puzzle should be. Bravo Alberich, and thanks Turbolegs for the blog.
Exactly what Conrad said.
Just as Hovis, had thought of DIRE at 25d (my LOI) but horrible=vile led me to WEILL which l confirmed from Google. Found this smoother than Paul in the Graun.
Simply superb. When I saw a choice between Alberich and Paul I went straight for this one. Meticulous clueing with all the information right in front of you. I also had DIRE without conviction so a dnf – but who cares about coming off second best when faced with such class. Thanks to Alberich and lucky Turbolegs.
WhiteKing @6 – I have to do the Guardian puzzle first, whoever it is: it’s my paper and I’ve been doing it for decades – but it was lovely today to know that I had one of my top favourite setters to come. I do wish that Alberich were in the Guardian stable, where he would get wider coverage – not least because I would love to blog one of his puzzles!
I said recently that to list favourites could imply that the other clues were not up to much but, since it’s late and there have been no other nominations, I’ll CITE [last one in!] 11, 20, 26, 28ac and 6 [loved it!], 8,9,17,19dn.
Thanks to Alberich and Turbolegs. Very enjoyable. I did not have trouble with Weill-VILE but had never before come across OFFIE and for some reason took a while before spotting CITE.
Thanks to Turbolegs and Alberich
I agree with almost everything and everyone.
Except the description of 10a as non-cryptic.
We have wordplay and definition, and also a play on FORBEAR. It is a valid variant spelling of FOREBEAR so the clue immediately brings to mind a stain on the memory of your ancestors and the like. Well it did for me anyway.
Eileen@6 – I did feel a bit traitorous going for this over The G but I knew I didn’t have that much time today and Alberich/Klingsor is definitely a top setter for me and I know I’m going to get what I enjoy most, whereas with Paul it’s more of a lottery – and I’m still struggling with the left hand side having spent the evening with it on and off! I agree it would be great to see him in The G – maybe you could be given a guest blog when he next appears in the FT or Indy? As for favourites I had 1,13,15,22a and 3,6,17,21d ticked as well as CITE so between us we had most of them covered :-).
Thanks Alberich and Turbolegs
Agree that this was a fantastic puzzle, even though done some 4 months after publication. Took nearly twice as long as normal to get the grid out with a lot of cunning deception with some of the definitions and cryptic plays. Case in point would be 23d, where I had confidently written in NEWEL initially – a reversal of EWEN (gentleman upset)+ L (leading lady), with a NEWEL certainly a part of a flight of stairs. It was only with the surprise entry of SHAMROCK that I knew that I had to rethink the logic. Was another who had (not so) confidently written in BLACKBEARD at 15a until again proven otherwise.
Hadn’t seen that British meaning of OFFIE before and had to also run through a list of German composers to find Kurt Weill.
Finished in the SW corner with PERADVENTURE (another clever clue), CITE (where I had to unclutter the thinking to find the hidden word) and that VILE as the last few in.